Glass Smithing is the third perk in the light armor branch of the Smithing skill's perk tree. Unlocking it requires a Smithing skill of 70, and the Advanced Armors perk must have already been unlocked. Glass Smithing allows both Glass Armor and Glass Weapons to be crafted.

The Glass Smithing perk also causes tempering of Glass weapons and armor to be twice as effective. This perk applies to both unenchanted Glass gear and enchanted gear (generic armor, generic weapons, or custom), as long as the Arcane Blacksmith perk has been unlocked. Tempering of a couple other items is also improved by Glass Smithing, namely: Chillrend and Grimsever.

Glass Armor is the third-best light armor, behind Dragonscale and StalhrimDB light armor. It appears in leveled lists starting at level 36 (enchanted varieties at level 37). All items can be tempered using Refined Malachite, and having the Glass Smithing perk doubles the quality improvement.

Glass Weapons are the fourth best weapons, behind Dragonbone, Daedric, and Ebony weapons. They appear in leveled lists starting at level 27 (enchanted varieties at level 28). All items except ammunition can be tempered using 1 Refined Malachite, and having the Glass Smithing perk doubles the quality improvement. Arrows can only be smithed if the Dawnguard add-on has been installed.

One notable weakness with glass weapons is that several of them (dagger, mace, and warhammer) do not do any critical damage.[verification needed]

† The base gold value used for all generic enchanted versions of the Glass Bow is 287 instead of 820. Similarly, enchanted Glass Swords have a base value of 205 instead of 410. This means that the enchanted weapons are 533 (bow) or 205 (sword) gold cheaper than they should be, and in several cases are cheaper than the unenchanted version. This bug is shared by several types of bow in the game.

Ore veins (all types) sometimes do not respawn normally. See Mining (Bugs) and elsewhere on that article and its talk page.

The in-game material Malachite shares its name with the real life copper ore called malachite, Cu2CO3(OH)2. The Elder Scrolls' malachite was likely named after the real world material for the blue-green hue shared.